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Show notes

Money is a rich source of drama because it can stand in for so many things: power, authority, comfort, companionship, nourishment, pleasure, security and much more.

We talk about the drama-relief cycle, the myth of the starving artist and how getting better with money doesn’t make you a boring, mean normie!

Martha quotes Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture”. In the episode Martha mis-remembers the line as “Shopping is not creative” and as marginalia, it is in fact a chapter heading: “Shopping is not creating”.

We refer back a few times to our episode on all-or-nothing thinking.

Our tips:

• If you want to be a creative, create! Don’t just try to live a glamorous “creative person’s” lifestyle by being eccentric and bad with money. It’s self-destructive and unfulfilling.

• Making bad art is better for you than making bad dramatic decisions and it gets less scary with practice.

• Don’t romanticise trouble. Trouble is mostly dull, exhausting and frustrating.

• Find creative role modes who are organised and on top of their finances. More professional creatives are good with money than you would think.

• Understand that you can experience joy without having to be miserable and stressed most of the time first. Show yourself some self-compassion and allow yourself joy on top of a baseline of doing ok. Being on top of your finances won’t kill the good times, it just makes them more affordable.

• If you are used to living a life full of drama you may find that a more peaceful existence is disconcerting and you become on edge waiting for something to go wrong. Breathe through it, you can learn to trust it, and yourself, in time.

• If you have a drama-filled past and you realise you were pretty difficult to be around because of it, (and probably owe a bunch of people a bunch of drinks!) don’t beat yourself up. You can’t change the past, you can only do better from now on.